Venezuela's Chávez Pushes for Indefinite Rule Again
In the wake of opposition victories in the Nov. 23 regional elections, and with the clock running down on his 2013 term limit, Chávez is reviving his campaign to secure indefinite re-election -- an idea that Venezuelans voted down last December. (Latin American Herald Tribune)

Pressure Mounts for Entire Chávez Clan
As President Chávez's brother, Adan, was campaigning to succeed his father as governor of Barinas in the Nov. 23 elections, Der Spiegel reported on the political power the Chávez family wields in its home region, and the accusations of nepotism and corruption that power has attracted from onetime supporters. (Der Spiegel, Nov. 20, 2008)

The Long SlideGuardian correspondent Rory Carroll writes about the day in 2007 when he was harangued by President Chávez as a representative of Western colonialism on Aló Presidente: "There was a dream-like quality to the scene. The blistering sun, the audience of government officials in red T-shirts nodding solemnly, the group of village women supporters waist-deep in the ocean blowing kisses to the president, the TV cameras zooming in on my perspiring face." (The Guardian, May 17, 2008)

The RevolutionaryJon Lee Anderson's profile of Chávez, written two years into his presidency, examines who he is and where he seems headed. Before interviewing him, Anderson spoke with Chávez's psychiatrist and visited the Simón Bolívar museum in Caracas. Chávez sees himself as a modern day Bolívar who "wants to fulfill Bolívar's dream of a unified continent." (The New Yorker, Sept. 10, 2001)

The Talented Mr. Chávez
Franklin Foer describes Chávez as "not just a clown with some oil money in his pocket. He is a deliberate strategic thinker -- ham-fisted at times, but also capable of tactical brilliance." (The Atlantic, May 2006)

Fidel's Heir
Nine years into the Chávez presidency, Jon Lee Anderson again gets access to the president and his close advisers. He probes Chávez's controversial hemispheric influence, including the nature of his relationship with neighboring Colombia and its Marxist guerrilla organization, the FARC; his deep friendship with Castro; and U.S.-Venezuela relations during the Bush years. (The New Yorker, June 23, 2008)

An Empty Revolution
Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez examines the data and concludes that while Chávez has made the welfare of the poor his top priority, "neither official statistics nor independent estimates show any evidence he has reoriented state priorities to benefit" this population. (Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008)

Hugo Chávez vs. Human Rights
Jose Miguel Vivanco and Daniel Wilkinson of the organization Human Rights Watch describe being expelled from Venezuela after issuing a report on human rights abuses. Their finding: "The Chávez government is more than willing to violate the country's constitution in pursuit of its own political agenda." (The New York Review of Books, Nov. 6, 2008)

Chávez's Fix
Examining Chávez's politics as a reaction to the bureaucratic failures of the previous government and the social unrest of the 1989 "caracazo," this article looks at the line Chávez walks between democracy and dictatorship, and whether his methods are resulting in net gains or losses for the country. (The Nation, Feb. 21, 2008)